Jordan has called on the Israeli government to immediately cease all violations at the al-Aqsa compound and has condemned Israel’s Minister of Strategic Affairs and Public Security, Gilad Erdan’s proposal to change the “status quo” of the Muslim worship site.

As reported by the Palestinian News Agency WAFA, the Jordanian ministry’s Secretary-General Zaid Lozi requested Israeli envoy Amir Weissbrod to pass a letter to the Israeli Government in which Jordan demands “immediate cessation of Israeli violations and any attempts to change the status quo on the holy site”.

In an interview with Israeli Radio 90, Israeli Minister Gilad Erdan stated “I think there is an injustice in the status quo that has existed since [19]67”. The minister continued suggesting that “We [Israelis] need to work to change [the status quo] so in the future Jews, with the help of God, can pray at the Temple Mount”.

After Israel occupied East Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in 1967, Jerusalem’s Muslim and Christian sites, among them the al-Aqsa compound, have been under the administration of the Jordanian Islamic Endowment. According to the arrangement, Jews are forbidden from praying at al-Aqsa.

In the letter presented to Israeli envoy to Amman, Jordan’s Foreign Ministry warned that any change to the status quo will have “serious consequences” as reported by the Middle East Monitor.

Israel’s Foreign Minister Yisrael Katz stood by Erdan’s statements, suggesting Israel is sovereign on the status of Jerusalem. In this sense, he asserted that “it is Minister Erdan’s right to put a suggestion on the table for discussion” and concluded that the matter is ultimately for Israel to decide as “the sovereignty [of Jerusalem] is the State of Israel’s”.

The Jordanian response comes as well in the wake of violence against Muslim worshipers in al-Aqsa during Eid al-Adha which concluded with at least 64 Palestinians injured by Israeli forces according to the Palestine Red Crescent Society. Various news sources reported that Israeli officers shot rubber bullets and teargas into the crowds and used truncheons to beat worshippers.

This year the Muslim festivity overlapped with the Jewish celebration of Tisha B’Av during which over 1,700 Jewish settlers stormed the Muslim compound under the protection of Israeli police officers.